iss050e020051 (12/30/2016) --- A view of NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough and floating lettuce, in the U.S. Laboratory. Future long-duration space missions will require crew members to grow their own food, so understanding how plants respond to microgravity is an important step toward that goal. Veg-03 uses the Veggie plant growth facility to cultivate a type of cabbage, which is harvested in orbit with samples returned to Earth for testing.